Aviya Sherman: The Torah-Driven Musician Bringing Faith, Groove, and Purpose to Israeli Culture

Aviya Sherman, 29, married and a father of four, lives in Nachalat Yosef (a stunning hilltop near Elon Moreh). He is the manager and lead singer of the wedding band “Ashira”, and a rare bird in the world of renewed Jewish music. A deeply Torah-rooted man who electrifies teenagers in performances across the country; a sidelock-wearing Jew who blends a Chassidic look with touches of hipster chic; an artist who releases love songs to God accompanied by highly polished music videos rarely seen in the genre, set to groovy, rhythm-filled melodies.

“Until the beginning of the war, I was studying two daily study sessions at Yeshivat Elon Moreh in preparation for the rabbinical exams,” he says. “During my regular service I served as an officer in the Givati Brigade, so over the past two years I’ve done quite a lot of reserve duty — much of it in Gaza. In recent months I’ve tried to be as much as possible with my wife and children. In the evenings I often perform or work on music, and during the day I try to continue with Torah study.”

Concern for a Kidnapped Friend

“I was born into a national-religious family in Kiryat Malachi, and at a certain point we moved to Merkaz Shapira,” Aviya continues. “My father was the head of a pre-army academy in Merkaz Shapira, and my mother was a teacher. Today she’s a couples therapist, a bridal instructor, and a parent coach. The world of education was very present in our home — it seeped into my bones.

“I’m the eldest in the family, with seven younger siblings, and that also shaped who I am. I studied at the religious high school in Dimona, then at the hesder yeshiva in Elon Moreh, and enlisted as a yeshiva student in the Givati Brigade. At a certain point I left the hesder track and continued on to officer training. I got married during my commanders’ course. We lived in the community of Naveh near the Gaza envelope to be close to my wife’s parents, since I wasn’t home much. After my discharge, we moved to Nachalat Yosef, a hilltop we established with friends.

“We were the fourth family to arrive there; today there are 18 families. By the way, a few years ago we built a ‘bus zimmer’ in Elon Moreh — three guest cabins built inside decommissioned buses. It’s a real gem in the area. The person who helped us build them was Sagi Dekel-Chen, the hostage who was released from Hamas captivity, who turned out to be a real expert in this kind of thing. When I heard he’d been kidnapped, I was extremely worried — and just as great as the worry was the joy when he returned.”

With everything going on, where did your connection to music come from?

“It started at home. We’re a fairly musical family. My grandmother felt it was important that all her children play instruments, and that carried over to us as well. I loved music from a young age, and my parents invested a lot in me in that area. I learned recorder, guitar, and piano, and sometime around 11th grade I found an old saxophone, started playing it, and it became my main instrument.

“I come from a strong Torah home, and as I said, education runs in my blood, so I always dreamed of being some kind of ‘rabbi-singer’ — and in a sense I still do. That’s also why I earned a bachelor’s degree in education and started a master’s in business administration, because I wanted to manage within the field of education.

“In my first year at yeshiva I began playing saxophone professionally with various bands, and it became a very significant part of my life. After a few years as a band musician, I felt I wanted to see myself at center stage — because I really want to influence people, and because I love singing. At first that meant moving to the front of a wedding band, and later performing my own songs. A band I knew was looking for a lead singer, so I messaged the band manager, who already knew me. At first he thought I was confused and assumed they were looking for a saxophonist — but when I explained, he invited me to audition, and I got in.

“The first time I really started thinking about music as a creator was in the army. I had a lot of time on guard duty, and I began imagining myself playing and performing. My latest song, ‘Hallelujah’, which thank God is approaching half a million views on YouTube, includes a melodic segment that came to me in the bunkers of Givati’s training base. I never thought I had an amazing voice, but I felt I had a talent for making people happy — and thank God, I truly see that happening.

“Another thing I did was create a performance about guarding personal holiness, aimed at high-school students. I was inspired by Hanan Ben Ari’s show ‘Metbagarim’, and I set out on that path. I wrote and composed several songs for the show, realized I enjoyed it, and decided to keep creating songs. That performance is still running and getting great responses.”

Faithful to the Source

Several of Aviya’s songs receive strong airplay on radio and online, taking meaningful steps toward the long-awaited breakthrough.

“At some point early in my creative journey, I realized I wanted to be a meaningful figure in Israeli culture,” he adds. “I once spoke with one of my rabbis about the major challenges in education today. He said you can teach the most important topics in class, but when students lower their heads and go on their phones under the desk, they can see shocking things. At that moment I understood there aren’t enough good people ‘under the desk.’ You can’t hide everything from kids and teens forever — they get there. And good people need to be there too. So in my view, anyone with talent in this area should act in these worlds, be a positive and influential presence.

“That’s why I made a real effort to invest in my songs and music videos. I wanted teens to have a role model — someone they’d say, ‘I want to be like him.’ There are people teens once looked up to who slowly drifted away from the path, and with God’s help I want to be someone who stays faithful.

With such a strong desire, how does it feel that despite the investment, you haven’t yet broken through?

“For me, fame is only part of the journey — not the goal, so it doesn’t frustrate me. Success can mean many things. About Joseph it’s written that he was a successful man, and Rashi explains: ‘the name of Heaven was always on his lips.’ Joseph could have said his situation was terrible — God really put him in a very hard place, but still, God’s name was always on his lips. From this we learn that if I’m with God even when I don’t see Him at all, that’s called successful. Not likes or YouTube views.

“If you’re truly connected to your mission, you’re successful — no matter how many views you have. There are artists with millions of views whose inner world is empty, who are frustrated and dying inside.

“You can look at this in two ways: you can compare yourself to others, or you can say, ‘I’m good as I am, because I’m connected to my own place.’ Don’t get me wrong — I very much want to break through and reach wide audiences, but I’m not dependent on it. At my core, I’m an educator and really want to work in that field too. If in a few years I see I’m not making a big impact, I’ll happily go fully into education.

“I can also say that even by conventional measures of success, thank God there are quite a few achievements. It also makes me happy that I’m especially loved in the ultra-Orthodox sector. I participate in a program called ‘The New Voice’, aimed mainly at the Haredi public, and I’m still shocked by how many people know me through it. Often Haredim recognize me on the street, and yeshiva students sometimes call to say how much my songs strengthen them. Those messages give me strength. That’s part of why I’m currently working on a debut album and launched a Headstart campaign for it.

“Beyond that, I remind myself that in music you usually influence people indirectly. In the army and in education, I influenced people directly and quickly — I saw reactions with my own eyes. In music it’s different. I don’t see the thousands who listen to the songs or how they’re affected. And overall, as I said, what really drives me is the sense of mission. It’s something we received from our parents — to devote ourselves to the Jewish people, to be meaningful. That’s how my siblings and I were raised, and the same is true in my wife Gefen’s family — there are twelve siblings, most of whom are doing very meaningful work in education.

“I also believe a person needs to understand the meaning of their name and act accordingly. My name is Aviya, meaning ‘God is my Father.’ My mission is to tell the whole world that God is our Father, that He is good and compassionate, and brings kindness and joy into the world. To succeed in that mission, I try to make good music with important, positive messages, and to make sure everything is polished and beautiful. The lights we try to shine are beautiful — but it’s our responsibility to make sure the vessels are beautiful too, because in our world, the external also has power.”

Often when people are driven by a sense of mission, their creation is less connected to their heart, to their inner truth. How do you experience that?

“I feel that about myself — I’m aware of it and working on it. I’m essentially saying, ‘I came to influence, I came to do good,’ while many other singers say, ‘Come hear me and what I have to say about the world.’ That’s a very different statement. The difference is who’s at the center.

“I sometimes feel I’m not connected enough to the songs I write. For me, it’s a bit like running a Bnei Akiva activity in the form of a song. Also, I don’t really have the ‘tormented artist’ persona — my soul isn’t torn. Most of the time I’m a happy, optimistic person, and my life is good, thank God. So a line like ‘What do you want from me?’ isn’t necessarily something I feel deeply connected to.

“That said, I’m definitely on a journey in this area, trying to connect more deeply to myself and be able to write more personal material. Recently I’ve seen some sweet fruits from this process, and I hope that many more will grow within me.”